|
Helena Urbach Blog Entry |
|
May 12, 2023, 3:00:21 AM May 29, 2023, 2:01:04 AM 5/12/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "Wednesday/Free Draw Friday." (I did Free Draw Friday.) This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Helena Urbach. She isn't a main character but ends up playing more of a role late in the story, helping the good guys. There'll be more about her later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding her design, she's supposed to be taller and a little bigger and not quite as feminine as most of the female characters. Like a farm woman, I guess. For this reason I followed the male template when drawing her--longer nose, thicker neck, etc. TUMBLR EDIT: Hm, I haven't much to share on Helena's earlier life, she hasn't shared it yet and as I'm typing this up (early June) we're going through a major medical emergency so I'm not in much state of mind to brainstorm. Maybe she's just not ready to share. Part of her story, including the circa-2000 reboot version of how she first comes into contact with the Trench Rats (under her original, since-discarded name Kurtzer), is HERE, in Mahogany Rat's entry. Obviously, by this point she's already been through far more than she should have. In the original version, Helena had a little girl. In the newer version I last outlined, she had a husband. Most recently I'm leaning toward her having a husband and a child, for reasons that will become clear soon. I'm unsure of their life before the Nazis, though I wonder if perhaps they were farmers, based on Helena's physical build--tall, not exactly stout but not slender or especially feminine, well built and strong. I'm not sure though--she seems a bit educated and worldly to be a farm wife, especially compared to, say, the Klempers, who are pretty simple and ignorant of a lot of things (for example, Klemper can read, but can barely write)--so I can't commit to her specific background yet. Maybe they're just financially better off than the dirt-poor Klempers and so they could afford to be more educated. *shrugs* The Urbachs are Jewish, in 1930s Germany--and so the inevitable happens. They're rounded up and transported to a camp, where they're separated--Helena's husband is sent one way, then her child is taken away from her. She goes through the stripping, the delousing, the head shaving, the tattooing. (Tattoos are more ubiquitous in my story than IRL, where they were an Auschwitz thing.) By the time she ends up in a women's camp, in stripes, with a yellow star, assigned to hard labor, her spirits are almost completely crushed; it's only the thought of being reunited with her family that keeps her going. At the end of every exhausting, back-breaking day, and again when they're all rousted from their bunks to line up outside before the sun has even risen, it's the tiny burning feverish ember in her heart, keeping her trudging through the mud and blood and squalor and working until she's near ready to collapse and then the day ends again. Helena is thin, haggard, hollow eyed by the time the camp is liberated and its inmates are brought to the Trench Rats to shelter, sort out, and attempt to reunite with their families and move them out of the country. The entire process is too eerily reminiscent of what she went through with the Nazis: Everyone is put in lines, they show their tattoos, they give their info, all in a very brisk, clinical manner. The Rat Helena goes before is especially brusque, taking down her name and number without even looking her in the face, waving her on with a terse, "Next." It takes all the courage she can summon to address him directly, and when she does, he finally looks up at her and blinks, as if to say, what sort of nerve this person has to speak to me? The numbers aren't supposed to speak. Helena haltingly asks if he knows anything about anyone else named Urbach. He tells her he isn't equipped to provide such info, he's just there to process the newcomers. Dispirited, Helena thanks him anyway, and heads off to the next line. The rest of the process isn't quite as stressful. They're sheltered in a large room with multiple bunks, but are provided with sheets to hang for a bit of privacy. There are warm clean blankets and pillows. A doctor and his team make the rounds of the entire room, giving everyone a perfunctory checkup, sending those who need further attention to the medical ward. He's terse, rather aloof, but nothing like the doctors in the camp; he actually asks Helena if anything is bothering her. She wants to again ask about her family, but this is just a doctor, surely he wouldn't know anything; she says merely that she's thirsty, and wishes she could wash up. He says food and drink will be provided shortly, along with the chance to clean up, and goes on to the next person. As promised, other Rats arrive with food carts, and Helena is mildly surprised that the food is kosher. Some of the refugees eat while others go to wash off and receive a fresh change of clothes; by the time she's done with both, Helena can barely think of anything other than sleep, she's so exhausted. She dozes off immediately in her little bunk and dreams she's back in the camp. It'll be a while before those dreams go away. She snaps awake before dawn--because if you wake late in camp, you get a beating. Quite a few of the others have awakened as well, or been unable to sleep at all. There's a Rat stationed at the door nearby, light peeking in from the next room, and she wraps her blanket around herself and approaches him. He's polite when she addresses him, and explains that they're allowed to sleep later; there'll be no beatings here, no hard labor, no punishment. Helena returns to her bunk, but just lies awake as dawn gradually arrives and light filters in the high windows. By the time everyone awakes, they're all pretty confused; it's a much different atmosphere from the one in the camps, and no one's sure what to expect. Helena's had a lot of time to think, though. She again approaches the Rats, and volunteers her services as a go-between. She speaks German, she speaks Yiddish, she speaks passing-well English, her health is moderately decent compared to a lot of the others, and she's good at keeping a level head and calming people down. She can't bear the thought of sitting and doing nothing; if she can help at all, she wants to. The Trench Rats agree, and Helena, along with various other refugees who are in better physical and mental condition, or have particular skills that are needed, assist them in handling the less fortunate among them. A few times she even helps the doctor, Burgundy, with medical issues the others experience; blood and injuries don't make her queasy, and she's good at helping to keep refugees calm as they're tended to, even if she doesn't speak the same language. One day, a familiar Rat comes to meet her--the same one who'd taken down her information when she'd first been brought in. His name is Mahogany, and along with him is Copper, another Rat who often checks in on the refugees. He excitedly informs Helena that he's been digging through numerous records and he believes he's found what became of the other people named Urbach, the ones she'd asked about. Helena's heart leaps into her throat--when Mahogany tells her that both of them were reported by the Nazis as having been killed in the camps. In an instant, that burning little ember of hope, that's kept her going for so long, is snuffed out. Helena feels her lungs contract, her heart shrink in on itself. Her family is gone. She won't ever see them again, hug her husband, hold her child--by now they're surely nothing more but ash and smoke. She dimly sees the looks on the Trench Rats' faces--Copper looks aghast, while Mahogany starts to look uncertain--before her vision blurs and then darkens around the edges. Still...she'd asked, and he answered. "Danke," she makes herself mumble, before turning and heading back to her bunk. She slips into her bed, lets the sheet fall closed, curls up on her side and stares. It's too much at first and she's too numb with disbelief to even cry. After a while though, reality settles in, and the clenching in her heart grows into a dreadful, soul-crushing ache. She tries not to cry out loud, but can't help the whimpers that escape her. Throughout the day and night, now and then another of the refugees stops by her bunk to sit with her and hold her hand and stroke her hair, murmuring their sympathy; she'd comforted them once, now they attempt to return her kindness. It doesn't break through to her, though; she's too swallowed up in her own void to notice them much. She slips in and out of sleep and waking, dream and reality, and time has no meaning anymore, because nothing does. Finally, after what might be either moments or years, someone places their hand on her arm. A hazy shadow leans close and murmurs in German, "Frau Urbach, Sie müssen essen." You have to eat. She blinks a few times, her vision clears; for some reason she'd almost thought it was her husband, although he wouldn't call her Frau Urbach. She sees it's the Trench Rat doctor. He looks concerned. She suddenly feels it--the clenching in her empty stomach as well--she feels that she shouldn't be hungry, not when she has nothing left to live for, yet she is. She slowly pushes herself up, noticing the other refugees standing around peering in at her; Burgundy asks for privacy and they let the sheet drop and depart. He hands her a small bowl of fruit which she holds but does nothing else with; "Just one piece," he says, so she slowly eats one. "Now another," he says, and she does so, until the little bowl is empty, and he gives her a cup of water: "One drink," he says, and she sips until the cup is empty. He touches her hand when he reaches for the cup and it hits her again and her eyes well up and she sucks in a breath. "What do I do?" she asks, to which he replies, "Don't think too far ahead. Just one little step. Then another." He sits with her while she cries, this time letting out the sounds. It feels like hours, like the grief is bottomless, but eventually she just grows too tired to keep crying, and they just sit. She must doze off, for she wakes and he's gone, though the Rats with the food carts are making the rounds, and she accepts a little food although she doesn't feel like eating. She still breaks down crying a few times, yet also continues going through the motions of living. When one of the Rats stops by to ask if she'll accompany him to the medical ward--Burgundy says they could use an extra pair of hands--she goes with him. She spends the day helping out with a few new arrivals who are frightened, ill, and traumatized; it doesn't take away her own pain, but it distracts her a little, and helps the time pass. During a lull, she asks Burgundy, "Who did you lose...?" He stares at her a moment, seeming surprised that she would ask, before quietly replying, "Everyone." He doesn't need to say anything else, and neither does she. She resumes her previous activity with the refugees, at first just to keep herself going, then to fill in the time, then to fill in the void. The pain doesn't go away and she doesn't expect it to. She keeps living, though, and as long as she's alive, she figures, she may as well keep going, helping others even if they can't help her. It isn't long after (though it feels like it's been ages) when Mahogany returns. She's never seen such miserable guilt on anyone's face before, and it gives her pause. He haltingly attempts to explain himself and apologize for his previous actions: Her initial request for information had niggled at him in a way things rarely did, so after his shift was over, he'd gone digging through not just the Trench Rats' files, but German documents they'd confiscated as well. It was in these that he'd discovered the fate of Helena's husband and child. He'd been so excited to be able to give her the information she'd asked for that it hadn't even occurred to him he was delivering the news that her family was dead, until he'd seen the look on her face, and Copper had rebuked him for it. He hadn't even been thinking of that possibility--he'd just been thinking of their ID numbers, not the people behind them."You realize, this is the same way the Nazis think," Helena says, which makes him physically flinch; she can tell the comment stings. He acknowledges this: Mahogany: "It's just, it's easier for me to figure out numbers, names, facts...I'm not so good with faces, people, feelings. I know there are people behind the numbers. They're just..." Helena: "Complicated?" Mahogany: (nods) Helena: "And you don't know how to deal with complicated." Mahogany: (nods) "You see how well I already did." Helena: "I believe I understand." Mahogany: "I meant no offense. I really should've thought before I spoke, and I'm sorry." Helena: "It's all right. I see you were only trying to help. You know, though...if you want to better know a person behind a number, it's all right for you to ask." Mahogany: (nods) "I understand now." Helena: "Helena. Urbach." (holds out hand) "So I'm not just a number on a page." Mahogany: (grasps her hand) "Mahogany." Helena: "And I mean it. Danke, for the trouble you went to, to find out what happened to my family." (voice breaks a little) Mahogany: (pause, waiting for her to compose herself) "Since you mentioned it...does it make it hurt less...? Now that you know?" Helena: (pause) "Nein...it hurts the same. But it helps." Helena remains with the Rats for a time as she has no family to be reunited with. She helps a good number of the newer refugees navigate their new lives after Nazi captivity. She meets a rescuee named Jakob Wolfstein when he's brought into the medical ward; Burgundy, who's usually skilled at concealing his feelings about such things, seems especially unsettled by this patient, and asks Helena to speak with him. She expects someone severely traumatized; yet Wolfstein appears in rather better spirits than most newcomers she's met, and once she introduces herself, he seems excited to meet another Jew. He actually clasps her hands in his and smiles from ear to ear, a reaction she's unused to. She asks him about himself and learns that he recently escaped Nazi custody with the help of a Trench Rat named Silver, who's also recuperating in the medical ward; Helena has heard of this incident already, Silver ending up captured by the Nazis and briefly going missing, as it was pretty big news. She peers at him dozing several beds away, black and blue all over; "He had it much, much worse than I," Wolfstein murmurs. Most of the escape, in fact, was orchestrated by Wolfstein, as Silver wasn't in good shape once the Nazis were done with him; they fled to the protection of a group of partisans, and have only just returned to Trench Rat Headquarters following negotiations between the partisans and the Rats for a supplies trade. The two chat for a while, and Helena promises to come talk with him again after he gets some rest. He again clasps her hands and wishes her goodbye. Helena reports back to Burgundy, who wants to know her impressions of Wolfstein's mental state; "He seems fine to me," she admits, "more than fine, actually," and she describes their interaction, Wolfstein's buoyant spirits on meeting her, his emphasis on Silver being the one who truly needs attention. Burgundy seems nonplussed; "Herr Wolfstein didn't go through nothing," he says; "those Nazi 'doctors' experimented on him. Did you see his scar?" Helena says it looks like he had a scar on his chest, partly hidden by his clothes; in response Burgundy traces a finger along his own chest, across and then down, a rough Y shape. Helena's face goes pale; "They vivisected him," Burgundy says, and she can hear just a twinge of it in his voice--fury. Wolfstein had given no sign, said no word of such a thing; his concerns lay solely with Silver's welfare. Helena and Wolfstein continue to meet and get to know each other. Both of them are comforted to find a similar soul to chat with. Helena learns that Wolfstein has a sister, Johanna, and several extended-family members he hopes were not captured and wishes to get back in touch with soon. Wolfstein learns that Helena has no family left. Pain pinches his face and he cups her hands in his. "I'm sorry," he says, and seeing the tattoo on his arm, she knows that he perfectly understands where she's coming from. She has to swallow and blink a few times to not be overwhelmed again. One day when she visits, Wolfstein is a bit quieter than usual, as if trying to figure out how to tell her something; when she finally asks what's on his mind, he explains the reason he believes his sister and cousins are still alive: He'd caught wind, while in captivity, that they'd eluded capture and joined a resistance effort known as the Diamond Network. "When I leave here, if I can find them," he says, "I hope to help them with their cause. Whatever little bit I can offer. Even if only my last breath. I wanted to ask you, if you would like to do the same? You have such a large soul, and there are so very many you can help. Even more than here. I know that you worry you can't do enough. This isn't true. But you can do more, if you wish." Helena hesitates. While it's true that she worries she doesn't do enough among the Trench Rats, still, it's all she knows she can do. They've also been incredibly kind to her, and she hates the thought of leaving them. Still...Wolfstein explains a bit more how she could assist from within the Diamond Network, and it does sound like there is so much more she can do, people she can help at the most urgent moments, rather than just in the aftermath. Given her own experiences and knowledge, she'd be invaluable. Helena says she needs to mull it over a little bit; Wolfstein replies that it may be a while yet before he can locate his sister (incidentally, Mahogany is one of the parties digging into it), so she can take her time to decide. The first person Helena asks for input from is Burgundy. Despite his widely known sour, standoffish attitude, he's only ever been kind to her, and she values his opinion. He says he's sure she could do very well for the Network, as she's done so well for the Rats: "Of course, we'll miss you here." He advises her to do that which her intuition tells her to do. Mahogany offers similar thoughts. Helena makes up her mind; she goes to Wolfstein and tells him that whenever he finds his sister, she'd like to come and help them. She'll remain with the Rats until then. Wolfstein tells her she won't regret her decision. Some time later, Mahogany finally helps track down Johanna and Wolfstein's cousin Noah, and Wolfstein returns to his family. A little bit after that, he sends Helena a message back at Trench Rat Headquarters: He's settled back in with his family, and is ready to help out the Diamond Network--he invites Helena to join them. She says her goodbyes to Burgundy and the others, and departs. Helena doesn't show up again in the series until late, by which point the first Trench Rat sergeant, Camo, has dropped his own solitary resistance disguise and re-joined the Rats, becoming co-commander along with the former corporal Gold. Following the war, the handful of Trench Rats remaining in Germany, including Burgundy, Mahogany, and Camo, investigate reports of continued Nazi activity occurring in the Alps. Helena appears at the newly repurposed Project Doomsday headquarters where the Rats have taken up operations and offers her services; Mahogany gratefully accepts her help going through records, and she helps both with keeping HQ in touch with the group who go to the mountains, and with the ongoing efforts to reunite separated families and property. Through this role, she comes into contact with Camo. Helena doesn't take much notice of the Trench Rat sergeant at first, and he takes no notice of her. It's only after the Alps business is settled and Camo joins in with reunification efforts that they officially meet. Camo doesn't make a great first impression; he's aloof, standoffish, curt, and rather cold. He isn't RUDE, but he definitely isn't friendly, either. Helena tries to chat with him now and then but although he acknowledges her, he makes no real effort to reciprocate. She knows he's not an antisemite, as his corporal, Drake, is Jewish, and the two get along very well. She actually considers asking Drake what's going on with Camo, but he returns to France shortly after the Alpine Fortress affair, to continue recovering from the torture he himself suffered at the hands of the Nazis. There IS one other party in an odd position to know quite a bit about Camo's life, someone who actively participated in typing up many of the files the Rats now find themselves sifting through, and who tipped them off to this goldmine of information as part of a deal following his capture by the Rats near the end of the war. He escaped serious punishment by a military tribunal, and still stops by headquarters on occasion to help the Rats locate particular files. This vast reservoir of information, private personal records on literally tens of thousands of people, was kept by the Allgemeine-SS, and one of the numerous secretarial workers who participated in putting together and archiving the information was SS-Captain Otto Himmel. Helena has also heard of Himmel: He took part in the former Allies' efforts in the Alps, and provided directions to all the files formerly in SS custody, though he spends most of his time in the country with his son. Dour, brooding, and reclusive, he mainly keeps to himself, but is always polite when addressed directly. Most of the others leave him alone aside from when they're seeking particular files, and he doesn't seem inclined to make friends. Helena, of course, expects a virulent antisemite who is unlikely to cooperate with her, though when she introduces herself to him directly one day, she's surprised when he merely says, "Ja, I remember you." He recalls her being involved, on the ground, in the Alpine Fortress affair, which rather perplexes her, since she kept mostly in the background. Himmel remembers everyone who was involved, though, and not only that, he remembers her personal file. He doesn't say anything about her being a Jew, however, so instead of dwelling on that, she asks about Camo, if she has any reason to believe he'll be difficult to work with. Himmel replies that he has no idea what Camo may think of her, but "He fully has every reason to despise me." Without elaborating on that at first, he expresses puzzlement, why she thinks Camo will have a problem with her; when she describes his attitude Himmel replies he's been that way for a long time, and he's decent at working even with people he doesn't agree with. "You've seen his file, ja...?" he asks; when Helena says no, she wasn't aware he had one, he hesitates. Himmel: "We keep...kept...files on everyone, especially the American soldiers, when we could find information on them. Herr Camo was no different. We wanted to know ways to best...ways to best take advantage of his weaknesses. This is the way the SS worked. (pause) Your file, for example. It says you lost your husband and child in the camps...I'm sorry." Helena: "Danke." Himmel: "You and Herr Camo actually have things in common, though he has no way to know. He lost his wife and child before the war." Helena: "He--he had a family?" Himmel: "Ja, a wife and a young daughter. He lost them in an accident and was badly hurt himself. (pause) The SS took advantage of this fact when they...we...found out. There was another American soldier, a young woman, whom the Waffen-SS turned as a spy. They sent her along to catch his eye and try to get information. He's a loyal American, he never gave her secrets, but she did get access to Headquarters. You know what happened next." Helena: (nods) Himmel: (pause) "You've read her file...?" Helena: "Nein." Himmel: (long pause) "I won't go into all the particulars. But I had good reason to believe she was a threat to my son and to others. When we caught Herr Camo and Herr Drake and her, I shot her. In front of him. He would have killed me if he'd gotten the chance." Helena: "You killed her...?" Himmel: "I murdered her, ja. And if I had it to do again I would do the same, for my son. And not a night has gone by since then without me having a nightmare about it. My mind knows I did the only possible thing, yet my heart still hurts over it, and always will. This is why he hates me, though. He was convinced this woman, this spy, she loved him. She didn't. I'm certain some part of him knows this. But mind and heart are two different things, ja? His mind knows I killed a spy but his heart feels I killed the person who loved him and whom he loved. I'm not sure he'll ever forgive me and that's all right. It may explain some things, though. Like why he keeps everyone at a distance. It's easier for some people to be alone than to hurt again. I highly doubt he has anything against you." Helena returns to the documents and while she refrains from digging up Camo's--it seems like it would be a breach of trust--she does look up Himmel's, as he outright tells her before departing that he welcomes her doing so, he's an open book. She finds that he shares similarities with them, too--his wife died giving birth to their son, who not long after he was forced to relinquish to the state for much of his early life--he lost his spouse and, in a way, his child, himself. When she and Camo start working together on the files she makes a bit more of an effort to talk to him, keeping in mind his likely reasons for maintaining a distance. On an occasion when Drake visits from France, she chats with him and finds him much more personable and open despite his obvious trauma (Papillon, a former partisan he'd grown close to, accompanies him everywhere and is never far away, and Drake has developed a slight permanent tremor from the torture he went through--he shivers as if cold the entire time Helena talks with him), and the two of them hit it off rather well. Seeing how they get along seems to thaw Camo out a little--it's obvious, despite their personality differences, that he values Drake's friendship highly--and after Drake and Papillon depart again, he actually approaches Helena first, offering a stilted apology for his aloofness. Helena accepts it, and their conversations as they search and sort through the files become a little less one sided. Helena tells him a bit about her old life and her family; he seems surprised, so she can tell he never paid close attention to her file, if he ever read it. It takes quite a while for him to mention his own family, and when he does, he can barely get out any words, appearing ready to just not bother talking about them at all; Helena tries something different, asking him about his daughter. As she'd expected--she'd seen the same reaction when Himmel switched from talking about his wife to his son--his spirits buoy slightly as he shares a few details about what she was like. Helena tells him about her own child. For a few moments it's almost a normal conversation, when Helena suddenly catches herself using the present tense--she sees the pained flicker in Camo's eyes a split second before she feels it herself, then her eyes blur and she has to take a breath. Then, something completely unexpected--she feels Camo clasp her hand, and she clasps his back. She takes a moment or so to compose herself and rubs at her eyes before looking at him again. "It never quite goes away, does it?" she murmurs, and Camo shakes his head. The ice breaks. Helena and Camo grow close, though Camo is still cautious and hesitant at first, not just because of his deceased wife, but also because of Corporal Anna Julian, the American who had spied for the SS. Their relationship hadn't had the chance to get very far, one reason he's reluctant to get involved with Helena; still, the experience wounded him badly. He avoids interacting with Himmel, and Helena can see the way his muscles tense and his eyes harden whenever the former SS officer is around. He refuses to talk about his feelings regarding the matter, though eventually (for reasons I haven't entirely figured out yet, though I imagine that again, Drake may have a hand in it--maybe he tells Camo how Himmel diligently wrote letters to his deceased wife all throughout the war, to "stay sane") he starts to try to let go of some of the hostility, and Helena accompanies him to Himmel's home, a big country mansion abandoned by its previous owners, to meet with him and his partner Johanna Wolfstein (yep--same Johanna), his adult son Kolten, and the various children they adopted following the war. He learns that Himmel still struggles with guilt over what he did so long ago, yet also sees how much he cares for his own family. Despite the intense hatred Camo's felt for him all these years, Himmel harbors no bad feelings in return, and even welcomes Camo and Helena to his home. After they leave, Camo confides in Helena that he's still angry about what Himmel did, he isn't sure if he can ever entirely let go of the feeling...yet for the first time, this realization bothers him. He feels like he SHOULD be able to let go, by now. "How do you not still hate them all?" he asks Helena, "After what they did to you and your family?" Helena has to think for a while. "Just because I do not hate doesn't mean the bad feelings are gone," she finally says. "I still hurt every day. It never goes away. But understanding it helps." She grasps his hand and squeezes. "It's all right if you can never let go of the anger. As long as you don't get stuck in it and let it eat you up. Some hurts never leave you. It isn't a flaw. It reminds you you're human." Camo doesn't seem to entirely believe or understand her, but he doesn't argue. He clasps her hand back. [Helena Urbach 2023 [Friday, May 12, 2023, 3:00:21 AM]] 5/29/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "Expressions." Was a long day so I decided to try some rough character sketch practice. Would be nice to draw them in different poses. These aren't technically expression practice though a few have one (Schäfer has his lovely deer-caught-in-headlights look). I'd just like to get better at this. (You can see the first effort really sucked. Seems a boxy shape is better than a round one.) They were done sans reference so some details are off. I drew different expressions exactly a year ago, it turns out. Didn't realize it'd been so long. [Rough Character Sketches 2023 2 [Monday, May 29, 2023, 2:01:04 AM]] |